10 Stories of Epic Pranks and Legendary Hoaxes

For more than a decade, a prankster spun a web of deception about the inventor of the electric toaster. His lies fooled newspapers, teachers and officials. Then a teenager flagged up something that everyone else had missed.

A new book curates pages from a series of mail-order prank catalogues published between 1896 and 1930, when American men played hair-raising jokes on initiates of their fraternal lodges.

It started when the network aired this broadcast featuring farmers “harvesting” the spaghetti crop from trees.

From the pages of 4chan to the White House, the story behind the meme that’s never going to give you up.

How an inspired prank helped the Seattle music scene get its revenge on the world.

On April 13, 1844, a special extra of the New York Sun announced: “ASTOUNDING NEWS! … THE ATLANTIC CROSSED IN THREE DAYS! SIGNAL TRIUMPH OF MR.

Artist Joey Skaggs fooled everyone and pedaled off.

A French scientist's photo of a star from the James Webb telescope turned out to be a slice of chorizo. It had nothing on the Great Moon Hoax of 1835.

In 1982, during the middle of The Game between rivals Harvard and Yale, a third player entered the game when MIT students pulled the greatest prank in college football history.

I was a bored high schooler when I made up a harmless story about the creature from the sandpits. Decades later, its legend still haunts our small Southern town.

Going deep on the history, science, and philosophy of springtime shenanigans.